It's a heartbreaker

Ben Z said:
...and with one notable exeption, without having to go into a menu😀
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Right. I love being able to change ISO on the D2X without even having to look at the camera, but even if you have to go into a menu it's not quite as tedious as rewinding film and setting up a new roll.

Am I defending the M8? No, just the superiority (in most cases) of digital.
 
Well it is all a matter of taste. As far as color goes, it all depends on what you want. I am just starting to take a break from my pro digital work to do a tribute to Kodachrome. It is marvelous to me because the color scheme of the film requires me to pay close attention to how saturated life is rather than the film and is very consistent, where as digital is not always consistent. Don't get me wrong, I love shooting digital, but I do it day in, day out and it just does not behave the same way as a great film stock. I also love the delay. I find that I live life more and I become a better person with my subjects shooting film.

And that crop factor? Well I used to be an all Nikon guy before they made digital cameras that cropped the phenomenal peripheral bokeh out of Nikon's finest fast glass. It is a very important part of my style as well is having really fast wide primes. So I have like, 4 systems now, LOL!! I still have Nikons for my Kodachrome tribute and I love them, but I could not for a moment imagine cropping the awesome peripheral bokeh out of my 50 1.4 Summilux aspheric, noooooo way.

Either way, nice to meet a fellow Colorado resident. I run a busy stock, fine art and freelance business in Aspen, just came back from shooting my Kodachrome project on all those awesome blizzards in Denver, fantastic Leica film imagery there for sure..🙂.

Good luck in your quest.



rsl said:
I answered that question earlier in this thread, but it's a fair question so I'll answer it again.

As I said in the entry you quoted, I worked for years with a IIIf, M2 and M4, and I loved those cameras, especially the M4. But I've been working with digital for nearly seven years now and it's awfully hard to go back to film. I don't have room for a darkroom in Colorado or in Florida, so I wouldn't be making gelatin-silver prints. I'd scan the negatives or transparencies into Photoshop. But processing Tri-X at the sink means tanks, reels, dark bags, beakers, storage bottles, etc., etc., and bulk film winders. Processing color means sending it out, which is a pain and, nowadays, an unnecessary delay.

Furthermore, though I suspect you'll disagree, you can get a lot better color with digital. You also can switch back and forth between ISO without having to rewind a roll of film and switch or having to carry several cameras. Furthermore, I can carry enough digital storage in my back pocket to fill a suitcase in rolls of film.

As far as the crops are concerned, my D2X and D100 crop at 1.5X instead of the M8's 1.3X, and it's never been a problem. All you need is a shorter lens.
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Friday morning I got up early and checked the Epson refurb site. Holy Toledo! They had some R-D1 refurbs. I bought one and it'll arrive tomorrow. Took a bit longer to find a place that could ship a black CV Ultron 35mm f/1.7, but Photo Village had one in stock that'll get here before the end of the week.

That solves the problem for now, but I'm still waiting for Leica to really fix the M8. I'm pretty confident they will, but it may take a while, and the fix may be the M9.
 
>138 people dislike, 141 and ½ like.

Wow.

If this is accurate, it's a horrible record. One assumes that most people on this forum should like anything Leica.

No way any film Leica would have a ~50-50 love-hate percentage.

Except for maybe the M5 which was also a failed departure from the M camera heritage in many people's eyes.
 
Dave,
I can assure you most of the people on the M8 board are not predisposed to like a digital Leica- read between the lines (you seem to be an exception to this rule).

Ted
 
I don't think, Dave, that this is a very scientific poll 😉 These forums attract both lovers and haters, and I'm sure for instance PNet would have been different. On another poll, out of 53 respondents only 10 found the M8's IR sensitivity plus the filter solution unacceptable. Again, it does not mean anything, but I was surprised at the low number of negatives. I think the sales figures over the coming two years will be the real proof, and I predict the M8 will outsell the other M models put together by a fair margin. Anyway, only 0.00001% of the world population needs to be convinced of the M8's merits to make the camera a succes....
 
Ted, Jaap --

I did wonder whether those numbers were made up or otherwise false. That ratio does seem to be really out of line.

I know that you guys love your M8s and more power to you.

I think I have decided to sell both of my R-D1's. I'm not anti-digital in general at all but I think that in the rangefinder camp that there are just too many compromises for me to deal with.

The crop factor continues to annoy me and the inability to take more than two or three exposures in rapid succession without having to wait for the SD card write is a real concern. I also an constantly worrying about when the RF will go out -- I know it will sooner or later and this is not a happy sense of expectation.

While I still have praise for the R-D1, bottom line I think for type of things that I want to photograph (mainly street stuff) with a rangefinder that a film body is far and away the best choice for me.

And I have been using my Maxxum 5D DSLR more recently and I'm afraid that I am coming around to the point of view that for general purpose digital photography it make more sense to use a DSLR -- or even a P&S. I suspect that there is a Lumix L1 in my future.

No doubt my personal path away from digital rangefinder photography began with my profound disappointment with the M8 and my general disillusionment with Leica.

A cure in the form of a full frame ZI or CV (or maybe even a properly designed M9), as unlikely as these seem today, may once again attract me.

Oh, what a long, strange road this has been... 😉
 
Dave,
Check out the Rioch GR Digital- this is a great P&S. Also keep at least one R-D1. I know what you mean about the RF going out and what that's like to have lurking in the back of your mind while shooting far from home, however it's still a much better low light RF option then film. And remember with wide angle lenses and zone focus the R-D1 is a great street camera that does not rely on it's RF to focus.

Cheers,
Ted

PS. Sleep on it- I have read your blog and just as you arrived at the conclusion regarding the merits of digital while shooting in Europe I had the same experience in Hong Kong. You'll miss those R-D1s if you sell them for going back to film, and the DSLR will not cut it in many situations- mark my words.
 
AusDLK said:
Ted, Jaap --

. . .
And I have been using my Maxxum 5D DSLR more recently and I'm afraid that I am coming around to the point of view that for general purpose digital photography it make more sense to use a DSLR -- or even a P&S. I suspect that there is a Lumix L1 in my future.
. . .
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Couple the L1 with the soon-to-arrive Leica 25/1.4 for 4/3's and I doubt you'll miss your M8 or RD-1.
 
>Couple the L1 with the soon-to-arrive Leica 25/1.4 for 4/3's

I'm thinking this too and even more so when (hopefully) more smaller, faster primes hit the market.
 
Ahh yes, but who will fix the Epson?
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Well, it obviously won't be Leica. At least I don't have to put a filter on a $2K lens. Yes, there's some IR over-sensitivity, but you can handle it relatively easily in Photoshop.

Don't get me wrong, Ted, I'm still waiting for the M8 or M9 that really acts like an M. I want the feel of that camera back in my hand after all the years I used my M4, but the M8 isn't quite ready yet.
 
rsl,
I agree with you it would be nice if the M8 did not have the IR issue however as it stands now it definitely "acts like an M" of this I can assure you based on personal experience. If you can wait that too I understand as I feel Leica will probably have a solution by Summer or next Christmas. For me the wait and the photo opportunities I have between now and then outweigh the down side of the cameras issues. Also the camera as it now stands delivers performance far and away beyond the R-D1 and print quality that is unlike anything else. Lastly I could not risk being in either China or the South Pacific with an out of alignment RF on my R-D1 which are a common, almost every month occurrence for the way I use my R-D1. Again for me life and time are too precious and a more important commodity then the money I would have saved by waiting. When the M9 or M8 MkII comes out I'll get that and the M8 will become my back up and I'll sell my R-D1s on the bay.

Ted
 
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Don't Worry About Your Camera - Worry About Your Files

Don't Worry About Your Camera - Worry About Your Files

Athena said:
Film M's were around for what? Around 50 years or so. And before that were the screw-mounts.

And there are people here still shoot the earliest M's and even their ancestors.

Do you think anyone will be shooting a M8 in fifty years? Or even in five?

Good luck to the first adopters - I must say, if nothing else, the M8 has created a "gold rush market" for IR filters!
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I think concearn about whether you can use your camera 50 years from now is a a bit of a red herring in this discussion. Let's face it, all digital cameras are going to be obsolete in 5 years, not 50. I think the greater concern is being able to read your digital files - there's no standard for RAW and it is unlikely that JPG or TIFF will be the file of choice 50 years from now.
 
Conversion

Conversion

jaapv said:
So what is the problem in running a conversion program when a new standard appears?
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The problem is that there may not be conversion programs available for all formats. There are already countless RAW formats out there and its becoming a burden for software manufacturers to support them. This is not the right forum for this type topic but if you search the web for blogs on RAW + Standard you'll find lots of information on this.
 
Mark said:
I think concearn about whether you can use your camera 50 years from now is a a bit of a red herring in this discussion. Let's face it, all digital cameras are going to be obsolete in 5 years, not 50. I think the greater concern is being able to read your digital files - there's no standard for RAW and it is unlikely that JPG or TIFF will be the file of choice 50 years from now.
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For me the concern about whether I can use my camera 50 years from now is not even a red herring because I'll probably be dead as a mackrel 🙁 That said, I would have to be thoroughly insane to pay $4800 (or $0.48 for that matter) for a digital camera if I thought that it's image quality could stand that much improvement that it could be obsolete in 5 years. The prints (not talking about pixel-peeping unprocessed RAW files here folks) I'm getting from my 20D and the RD-1 are as sharp as anything I've ever gotten from 35mm, so as long as the cameras are operable I'm going to keep on using them. I don't care if in 2 years the entry-level Canon DSLR is full-frame and 24 megapixels because I didn't crop my 35mm negs and blow them up to 20x30 and have no reason to want to do it with digital files.

And as to the readability of files in 50+ years...well, I'll leave that worry to the folks who's photogrraphy is so good (or who believe it is) that someone will want to print it 50+ years from now.
 
Ever factor the cost of developing film?

Ever factor the cost of developing film?

Well Bennie boy I guess it's just inexpensive digital cameras for you 😛

But seriously here is a slightly different take on the whole "if I ain't using the camera in fifty years then it's not as good as my granddads M3" argument:

I agree film is viable and will continue to remain so for some time however no one wants to shoot long expired film- certainly not decades expired. Old digital cameras are just that- old and expired digital film. This is why it’s not a fair comparison to make between old film cameras that can shoot modern day film and digital cameras projected decades into the future. A more realistic and accurate comparison would be between a film camera whose format is long abandoned and a digital camera from today projected into the distant future. How many film cameras do you see in use today with long extinct film formats? Not very many.
 
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jaapv said:
So what is the problem in running a conversion program when a new standard appears?
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Or what's the problem after selecting your work, doing the post-processing and then saving it in an unitary standard like TIFF? Or even as a high-res JPG? You're probably not going to want strangers post-processing your work 50 years from now, so saving your file for 50 years as a RAW wouldn't seem to be necessary...

JC
 
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